Microsoft Falcon
Microsoft Falcon is an Operating System produced by Microsoft as part of the Falcon family of operating systems (formerly URT¹). It was officially released on the 23rd June 1998 with a minimal advertising campaign starting in April 1998. Development Falcon began as a re-tooling of the Windows URT family; it was stated that URT lacked certain progress between Windows NT and it's own kernel: "Ultra Revolutionary Technology" which was still based on NT at the lowest form. During patching process for URT 1.0 to 1.1, it was confirmed by Microsoft that a new Microsoft Product would be in development by the end of 1996. The name "Falcon" wasn't widely used until around 1.2 which the first build of URT Falcon (then codenamed "YoghURT") would be built on. Although it was based on URT, it was to be different as it would use it's own extra layer of code, meaning it would have 3 seperate codebases working together, this prompted the "Unity" name which was leaked around the beginning of 1997. It was also revealed by Harold Woodson at Microsoft PDC 1997 that this new version of Windows URT would be built upon its own base. However this was proved to be too ambitious as the NT kernel would have to be completely removed from the operating system which was still being relied on for URT around the time the decision was made to make it a seperate kernel. This ulitmately forced Harold Woodson, then director of Codename YoghURT to decide between rooting for the NT kernel but retain its restrictions or to completely build it from scratch which would no longer class it as a URT family product. Switch to the Falcon kernel During middle to late 1997, the NT removal process was considered "too hard to deal with anymore"; and the project was becoming increasingly problematic as many members of the YoghURT team found it hard to co-operate over features, removals, additions or other ideas. Sometime in very early 1998, it was rumoured that URT 1.5 (the next anticipated patch) would be dropped in favour for a new project. This was later confirmed by an annonymous Microsoft developer who had added onto their blog about the process of a new project codenamed "Falcon". It was to be based on a completely new kernel that was seperate from NT or URT, and it was to have been, according to them, in development since October 1997. However the leak of confidential information later saw the developer in question being fired, this in turn created a lot of unintentional hype from many fans of Windows. Microsoft later confirmed that it was indeed true that the new project would be based on itself, and that it would be better than ever. The switch happened sometime between Build 2010 and Build 2014, as this is the first build with the debug Falcon bootscreen (known as "Debug The Bird" internally). Despite its unfinished explorer shell, the switch was clearly in favour of Microsoft as benchmarking had shown a 31% increase in stability. This was celebrated by a joke in the winver reading "For once we can stop worrying about this!". As Falcon approached completion, it was decided to make it a universal product; which meant that it would not have a seperate Home and Professional version, but rather merge these two editions into one complete package. This was evident by the first reveal of it in PDC 1998 where Harld Woodson himself came to the stage and announced the Universal Product concept, which was considered as a great idea for both sides since Microsoft didn't have to produce two versions and the consumer wouldn't be confused on which one to buy. Overview Microsoft Falcon is the first in the Falcon series of Operating Systems. It's user interface is identical to that of previous versions of Windows, however it runs on a newer kernel that has been designed to prioritize system services over user services, this push into service prioritization made Falcon a faster and more reliable system to run. Display and Colours Falcon introduced a desktop environment with new icons; these were later reused for Windows 2000 and Millennium Edition as it was to prove how it could run 32 bit flawlessly, the colour depth was unrivalled at the time with being able to display sixteen million colours at once, which was a large selling point for Falcon. It removed the ability to choose monochrome as it was an obsolete technology by then, however it wasn't completely removed, as monochrome could still be used if a video driver only supported it; there are also user made registry hacks to re-enable it. Additionally, this was also the first version of a Windows product to support larger resolutions such as 1920x1080 natively, earlier Windows versions could do this, but it would be poorly used and in some cases forced the screen to fill the whole space instead, with native resolutions added for higher resolutions, it was able to appeal to those with modern monitors even though the majority that used Falcon were still on 800x600 screens. Internet This was the first version of any Microsoft product to support High-Speed Broadband, the updated Connect to the Internet Wizard allowed the ability to connect via broadband instead of dial-up, it would then unhide the Internet Explorer icon allowing the user to browse through any website — the version number for Internet Explorer was 4 when it was first released, with its update to 5.5 in 2000 from Service Pack 1, and finally 6 in Service Pack 2. Though if the user wanted they could always install their own choice of browser. Microsoft Falcon also added the ability to cut dial-up costs by half; it used a technology which was supported by some Internet Service Providers which would allow the dial up moden to dial an express number, however this meant that the wait time would be increased by around ≈4%. User Experience Despite Microsoft Falcon looking identical to Windows 95 and later Windows NT 4.0, it had added a lot more user features than before — obviously implying that Falcon was to put the customer first, however businesses could turn these features off if needed. Many of the features were a preceeder of Windows XP's user features, such as the login screen and updated Help and Support interfaces. Falcon removed a lot of useless and/or obsolete programs that were introduced in 3.1-NT 4.0 such as the HyperTerminal, Address Book and WordPad (in favour of Office Lite); these changes were both liked and disliked by users alike, some praising it for removing such features due to lack of usage, others (especially businesses) were critical of these features being removed due to how much use they could have if used correctly, these features could be readded if the user checked "Complete Installation" in the Setup or by inserting the installation CD and selecting "Install additional features". Another addition that Falcon introduced was better accessibility options, such as colourblind settings, options for people with bad hearing or bad eyesight and settings for people with mobility disabilities; as well as these additions it improved upon the already existing accessibility software. Criticism When it was first released, Microsoft Falcon received mostly positive reception from tech critics, praising it for its stability and easier interface as well as general cleaning up of clutter that was present in versions of Windows. Some even went as far to call it "Microsoft's best product to date", others were not so appeased by Falcon, the main criticisms were the removal of business usage programs and claimed that Falcon was to be more for the consumer rather than the business side of things, meaning many workstations preferred to keep NT 4.0 until Windows 2000's release. The removal of WordPad in favour for Office Lite was to many, a way for Microsoft to advertise Office products. Another common part of the critique for Falcon was how it functioned for home users as well. Being that it was intended for both Consumer and Professional environments, the identity crisis Falcon had on both parties was quite confusing for many users. However this was remedied by third-party software, which would automatically hide unwanted programs; this feature was then later brought in as a patch in an update. Controveries in other countries Microsoft Falcon was controversial when it launched for including a 'free demo' of a multi-media player. It was then found out that it was a fraudulent copy that had been cracked via Microsoft's own built-in tools. This outbreak of news caused many countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and other countries to ban sales of Falcon until Microsoft had removed the media player. More controversies include the "What-a-day" hidden in the Office Lite Word program, What-a-day was a game about shooting down various skateboarders in Miami, Florida; the game's discovery in 2002 had resulted in various anti-trust and anti-consumer lawsuits against Microsoft. In response, they concluded an investigation and stated that the game was never intended to be in the final product, but was an oversight by the quality assurance team. Service Packs A service pack is a set of updates and features that are downloaded and then installed to improve user experience. Four main service packs have been released for Microsoft Falcon, with six sub packs being released. If installing Service Pack 4,it is required to have Service Pack 3 installed as features rely on certain codebases and patches that were shipped with Service Pack 3. Service Pack 1 Service Pack 1 was released on the 4th July 1999, it was nicknamed the "Independence Pack" due to its release on Independence Day. The first service pack included over 250 minor patches from Post-RTM, it patched the "Windows URT 1.5" glitch that was sometimes shown in the login box by mistake. More additions for Service Pack 1 included: *Update to Internet Explorer (Now being registered as 4.1 internally). *Improved support for Plug-and-Play devices, and included support for the optical mouse. *Increased performance due to the AutoOptimizer now being enabled. *New Express Dial service, being Microsoft's in-house Dial-Up saver option. This service closed in 2012. However, Service Pack 1 removed some features that were latency software; this included the "Windows Help and Support" application, which was meant to serve as a prototype for the Falcon Help application. It had also removed the What-a-day game and also updated Office Lite to Version 1.0.2. Service Pack 2 Service Pack 2 was released on the 2nd Feburary 2000. Category:Fictional OS